My new PT Steve is not like Jason.
Jason was compact, quick, and watched me the way a coach watches film. Steve is tall, lean, and watches me the way a pitcher watches a batter, still and patient, reading every shift in my body before I know I’ve made one.
“Your transfer is sloppy on the left side,” he says, fifteen minutes into our session. “You’re compensating with your shoulder instead of your core. Jason noted it in the file but he let it slide because you were making progress. I’m not going to let it slide.”
“Jason never called my transfer sloppy.”
“Jason was getting you functional. I’m getting you precise. There’s a difference. Again.”
I do the transfer again. Bed to chair, chair to bed, the pivot and the push that I’ve done a thousand times since rehab. Steve stands with his arms crossed and his eyes on my trunk and he doesn’t touch me, doesn’t spot me, just watches.
“Better,” he says. “Your right hip is dropping. Engage the obliques before you push.”
I engage the obliques. I push. The transfer is smoother. Steve nods once, the only feedback that matters.
Tex drives me to therapy three times a week. Twenty minutes each way in the truck. We’ve developed a system. Tex brings two coffees from the bar, both black, both in Styrofoamcups because Tex doesn’t trust travel mugs. He says a travel mug is a promise that your coffee will be warm later, and he doesn’t believe in later. Tex lives in the now. Now coffee, now music, now conversation. Later is a concept Tex has heard of but refuses to participate in.
The radio stays on classic rock. The one time I reached for the dial Tex looked at me like I’d suggested we sell Big Bertha for parts.
“The mobility shop called,” I tell Tex on a Tuesday. “Parts came in. They can take my truck in next week.”
“Really? Next week? That was fast.”
“Two weeks for the install. Steering knob, left-hand accelerator and brake, the spindown knob for the column. They’re also putting in a transfer board mount between the seat and the door so I’ve got something to bridge the gap. Steve already sent the evaluation letter. Insurance approved it Thursday.”
“Did the insurance give you a hard time about it?” Tex asks.
“Don’t they always? I’ve been on hold with the insurance company four times this week. Each time a different person who asks me the same six questions and puts me on hold for the same terrible jazz music. I could hum it for you right now.”
“Please don’t.”
“The point is, I finally got it approved. They’re picking up my truck next week. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks, I’ll be driving myself.”
Tex is quiet for a second. He takes a sip of his coffee in the Styrofoam cup.
“You know I don’t mind driving you,” he says. “I want you to know that. These rides are the best part of my week. I’ve got a captive audience and a man who can’t escape my stories. That’s all I’ve ever wanted in life. Stormy doesn’t let me talk this much. Sheila cuts me off after two minutes. You’re stuck in a moving vehicle. It’s the perfect friendship setup.”
“You mean, you’ll miss me when I’m driving myself?”
“I’m going to be devastated,” Tex says. “I’ll have to start talking to Big Bertha again and she never laughs at my jokes.” He grins. “But seriously. I’m proud of you, brother. Get your truck. Drive your truck. Pick up your boyfriend at the airport. And when you feel like riding with me just because you miss me, the passenger seat’s always yours.”
The independence is coming. Two weeks and I’ll be behind the wheel of my own truck with hand controls and a steering knob to take me everywhere I need to go. The airport. The department. Mama’s house. Steve. The grocery store, which I haven’t been to alone since before the bullet because I haven’t figured out how to navigate a wheelchair through a grocery store. That bothers me more than I want to admit.
But the body is doing its own work on its own schedule. The sensation in my legs is spreading.
Steve tests every session. The left thigh above the knee is consistent now, pressure every time, reliable. Below the knee, the calf contractions have become regular, not just twitches anymore but voluntary movement, small but real. I can flex the left foot half an inch on command. The right thigh startedregistering pressure weeks ago and now the right calf is showing the first involuntary twitches, following the left the way Steve said it would. Both legs are waking up, the left ahead of the right.
“The pattern is textbook for your injury level,” Steve says, wrapping the blood pressure cuff after a tilt table session. “Proximal to distal recovery. The areas closest to the injury site come back first, then it moves outward. Thigh before calf. Calf before foot. If the feet come back, they’ll be last.”
“If?”
“If,” he repeats. “I’m not going to lie to you about the if.”
“I appreciate that.”
“What I will tell you is that weeks ago you had no sensation below the waist and today you have consistent pressure response in both thighs and voluntary motor response in the left calf. That’s a trajectory. I’m not calling it a destination but it’s a trajectory.”
The body is one thing. The brain needs its own job.
